Eyes on the Street: A Curb Cut We Can Believe In

If you've pedaled or walked Sutter Street lately, or happen to live on Sutter like me, you've probably noticed the curb ramps and streets being torn up. It's all part of DPW's $1.2 million Sansome and Taylor Street Pavement Renovation Project, which began in early February. According to the DPW's Christine Falvey:

Taylor Street from
Ellis to Pine will be repaved and two alleys off of Taylor Street as
well as Sansome from Sutter to California. This is about a four month
project. Curb Ramps have been designed and will be constructed along
both streets.

Taylor Street at Bush.

Some curb ramps in the area are decades old and on some corners there are none. A total of 30 curb ramps are being installed as part of the entire project. Falvey said a contractor was hired to do the work, as DPW only handles small projects. She points out similar projects are also underway on Noriega Street in the Sunset District, from 35th Ave to the Great Highway, in the Richmond District on Balboa Street from Arguello Blvd to Park Presidio Blvd and in SoMa on Brannan Street and along 3rd, 5th and 7th streets.

Falvey said the money for the projects comes from Prop 1B funds, a transportation bond measure approved by California voters in 2006.

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It’s disappointing that they are not putting any bulb-outs at crosswalks. Sutter and Taylor could both use some traffic calming.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/ArthurShotwell Josh

These ramps are welcome. They are, I believe, the result of an ADA lawsuit against the city and have been going in all over town for a few years

But am I the only one who’s noticed that the gutters along these ramps don’t drain properly anymore?

Peter

i’ve been seeing new curbs at intersections around the city for months — soma rings a bell, in particular. it always makes me very happy to see it — makes me think someone is actually forcing the city to act.

http://transbayblog.com Eric

I live close to here, so I’ve been watching this project progress with interest, and it’s a welcome development. That said, I would also like to echo eugene’s first comment above. I can’t tell you how many close calls I’ve had with cars speeding through the one-way street turns here, not watching for pedestrians. The streets that carve through the dense apartment blocks in this neighborhood offer nice opportunities for traffic calming and perhaps two-way conversions.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/AP AP

Good points Eugene and Eric. The City is in a multi-year process to add new curb ramps and truncated domes (those yellow sheets of plastic) at basically every single intersection throughout town. It’s such a lost opportunity to not think about bulbouts or other pedestrian improvements given the reality that doing so would only be a small incremental cost over what is already being spent. But given the City’s inability to coordinate, it’s no surprise.